Word: influenza
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...Ellen conceives of her story as a tribute to "my poor dear, dead dad," and that is pretty much what she provides. Billy Henshaw inherits sole responsibility for his young daughter after his wife and son die during the influenza epidemic that swept through Britain in World War I. "My dad always called himself not a pianist but a pianoplayer," Ellen recalls. "Pianoplayer gives you the idea of him and the instrument being like all one thing, jammed together." Billy makes his way by accompanying the silent films at a Manchester movie house during the mid-1920s. Unfortunately, he possesses...
Although acute infections like influenza kill thousands each year, most people defeat their tiny attackers. Still, they may suffer while the battle is being waged. Indeed, many of the typical symptoms of infection -- fever, chills, itchy rashes, localized swelling -- are due less to the virus than to the vigorous activity of the immune system. However, once the body has created a population of antibody-producing B cells designed to combat a specific virus, immunity to that virus often lasts for decades, or even a lifetime. Then why does the common cold return again and again? One reason, scientists explain...
...quick-change artist of the microbe world, a virus that minutely alters its external make-up, dozens of times as fast as the influenza bug. The rapid evolution of the deadly AIDS virus is a source of wonder to scientists. "We have not yet seen two viruses that are identical from two patients," says Dr. William Haseltine, a leading AIDS researcher at Harvard. Where did the deadly germ come from? Did it evolve from a less harmful variety? Last week reports from both sides of the Atlantic offered clues to the origins of the virus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome...
During the American Civil War, more soldiers died of typhoid than died in battle. The epidemic of Spanish influenza in 1918-19 killed more than 500,000 Americans. Before the Salk vaccine, nearly 600,000 Americans were infected by poliomyelitis, and 10% of them died. The polio epidemic caused memorable summers of trauma, during which swimming pools and shopping centers across the U.S. were closed...
...picture is not without incident. As World War I flickers through the Texas consciousness in newsreels and letters from the front, the people of Harrison wage a losing battle against influenza. Horace Robedaux (William Converse-Roberts), a clothier who fell in love with a well-to-do girl, is anxious about being sent to the war; he sees conscription as desertion of his wife Lizzie (Hallie Foote), his infant daughter and the baby on the way. While Lizzie's winsome wastrel of a brother (Matthew Broderick) gets into trouble with gambling debts and a pregnant girlfriend, Horace falls victim...